Coin sorting apparatus



June 2, 1964 w, P, ARNOLD 3,135,270

COIN SORTING APPARATUS Filed April l2, 1962 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 FIG. 4

lNvENroR kx WENDE/ IN P. ARNOLD BY gmt QW' ATTORNEYS June 2, 1964 w. P.ARNOLD COIN SORTING APPARATUS 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed April 12, 1962 FIG.3

/NvENToR WENDEL/N R ARNOLD BY- Q ATTORNEYS `passing thereover to `alarger aperture.

This invention relates generally to apparatus for sorting coils intotheir respective denominations according to diametral size. n

A coin of one V,denomination usually differs ,in diametral size from acoin of smalldenomination, especially in the coinage of any one givencountry. Therefore, these coins may be distinguished and separated fromeach other according to their respective sizes. Devices that have beendeveloped to yachieve such separation comprises in general a flat platehaving a plurality of circular apertures, oneaperture beingnprovided foreach` g United States Patent O size of coin to be sorted. The plate isusually inclined 'to the horizontal and is provided with'a guide meanssok that the coins when placed on an upper portion of the plate willpass along the surface thereof, in contact with the guide means,bygravity. The circular apertures abut the guide means and are arrangedin the order of p increasing size in the direction of travel of thecoins.

Thus, when the coins pass along the plate, the smallest coins dropthrough the first and smallest aperture, the next larger coins will passover the first aperture to drop through the second aperture, and so on.VA receptacle is usually provided beneath each aperture for collectingthelcoins passed therethrough.`

Suchsorting devices, however, are limited in their use because of theslow speedat which the coins must pass along the plate to achieve smoothand accurate separation. When a coin reaches its aperture, it does notfallV straight through` the aperture but follows a trajectory vdetermined byy its'weight and speed. Also, the circular aperture has adiameter only slightlyglarger than" that of the coin so that it will notaffect thenext larger coins Accordingly, each coin must travel veryslowly in order that its trajectory isA almost negligible, otherwise thecoin may Vstrike the trailing end of the aperture and rebound-or mayeven over-shoot it. High coin speeds, therefore, cause coins tointerrupt or jam the flow of coins by rebounding into the path ofthefollowing coins. High `speeds also cause misiires, that is, coinsover-shooting their respective apertures to pass through a largeraperture into the wrong receptacle.

Attempts have-been` made `to overcome this disadvantage of speedlimitation but have resulted only in adding another. These attempts havebeen to provide additional guide means for each of the circularapertures to ensure that each coin drops only into its respective.aperture ,while permitting larger coins to pass thereover.

VIn certain cases, abutments-have been employed on the trailing end ofeach aperture so that a coin is brought to a full stop before it dropsthrough its aperture. However, the only significant results are that thesorting plates have become very complicated with numerous projectionswhich ,may deflect a coin yfrom its path Vand thereby disrupt the flowofcoin.

It is, therefore, an object ofthe present invention to provide a sorting`apparatus for coins or the like which is of greatly simplifiedconstruction compared with prior sortingdevices and capable of sortingcoins or the like j at much higher speeds than hitherto known.

AThe essence of the invention is the use in a sortin apparatus for coinsof a plate having elongated apertures and a surface devoid ofobstructions to impede Y the passage of coins thereoveri Guide means arepro- Vless than the diameter of the next larger coin.

alassio Patented June 2, 1964 vided to guide thecoins to the apertureswhich are arranged successively in the order of increasing size in thedirection of travel ofthe coins. Each aperture is located adjacenttheguide means but with its adjacent edge spaced therefrom a distanceless than the radius of the coin to be passed therethrough. The remoteedge of each aperture ,is spaced from the guide means a distance justgreater than the diameter of thel coin but The elongation of eachaperture is defined by a leading and a trailing end spaced apart in thedirection of travel of the coins a sufcient distance to prevent the coinfrom striking the trailing end as it passes through the aperture.

Coin sorting devices according to the present invention have proven tobe extremely successful in the high speed sorting of large amounts ofunseparated coinage such as the receipts of newspaper publishingcompanies, bottling companies, recreational centers, etc. Not only doesthe simplicity of these devices result in such greatly increased sortingspeeds but also inl very high sorting accuracies required for thesubsequent counting and wrapping of the sorted coins.

Two embodiments ,of the present invention are described below withreference to the attached drawings in which: f

FIGURE 1 is a perspective view of a first embodiment of a coin sorteraccording to this invention;

FIGURE 2 is a fragmentary cross-sectional view taken on line 2-2 ofFIGURE 1;

`FlGURE 3 is a plan view of the coin-sorting plate and its mountingmeans, and

FIGURE 4 is a perspective view of a second Vembodiment of a coin sorteraccording to this invention.

' The embodiment shown in FIGURE 1 comprises a casing4designated-generally at 10 having a base plate 11, end walls 12 and 13and a rear wall 14. Supported at the top ends of the end walls 12 and 13and the rear wall 14 is a hopper indicated generally at 15 having asloping oor 16 inclined downwardly away from a flat portion 17 towards asteeply inclined end wall 18. The sides of the hopper are` dened bysteeply inclined side walls 19 and 20. The sloping floor 16 has a chute21 extending beyond the end wall 18and is spaced from the bottom edge ofthe end wall 18 to forrn `a slot 22 as shown in FIGURE 2. The chute 21of the sloping oor 16 has upwardly extending flanges 23 along both sides*thereof which are extensions of the side walls 19 and 2t). f f

Disposed 0n the base 11 of the casing 10 is a frame 24 having upwardlyextending end walls 25 and 26 which support at their upper ends alongitudinally and trans* versely inclined plate 27, hereinafterreferred to as slide 27. The upper endof the slide 27 has side ang'es,28

and 29 which extend along the remaining portion of theV issubstantiallyat and has arranged therealong adjacent the guide flange'30 a successionof apertures 35 to 39 of successively larger Vsizes from aperture 35 toaperture 39. Betweenv the `end walls 25 and 26 `of the frame 24 is asloping shelf 4t! having partitions 41 defining a plurality ofcompartments. A plurality of receptacles 42 to 46. are removablypositioned within these compartments beneath the apertures 35 to39,respectively.

Before :the apertures 35 to 39 are described in greater detail, theoperation of the sorting device will be described brietly with referenceto FIGURE 2. The coins are rst placed on the flat portion It' of thehopper 15 and are' then pushed by hand onto the'sloping floor 16 whenthey slide by gravity through the slot 22 and down the chute4 21. Theflanges 23 insure that the coins slide tothe free end of the chute 21from where they fall onto the curved plate 32 of the slide 27.

The slot 22 prevents too many coins falling onto the plate 32 at onetime, by limiting the passage of the coins therethrough. The deector 33between the side anges 28 and 29 ensures that the coins lie dat as theyslide by gravity downthe curved plate 32 onto the surface 34. Because ofthe longitudinal and transverse inclination of the slide 27 the coinsslide on their flat surfaces along the surface 34V in contact with theguide flange 30. Each coin will slidey or roll down surface 34 until itreaches the aperture through which it isY intended to pass. -The cointhen falls through that aperture into the receptacle underneath whereall the coins of the same denomination are collected.

As shown in FIGURES l, 2 and 3 live apertures are provided, one each forten cent, one cent, tive cent, twenty-tive cent and fifty cent pieces inthat order. Any coin largerthan the lifty cent piece, such as a silverdollar, will travel all the way down the slide 27 and drop over the endthereof into a suitable container (not shown in this first embodiment)which may be provided for this purpose. With reference to FIGURES 2 and3, it will be noted that each aperture is in the shape of a trapezoidand is spaced from the guide ilange 30 against which the coins are incontact when they travel down the slide 27. The apertures aresuccessively larger in size inthe direction of` passage of the coinsdown the slide 27. As exemplilied by aperture 39, each aperture isdefined by an` edge 4'7 adjacent to the guide flange 39,V a remote edge48, a leading end 49 and a trailing end Sil. The adjacent edge 47 isspaced from the guide ange 30 by a web 51. which is wide enough tosupport the near edge of a coin passing thereover but is not as wideasthe radius of the, coin intended to pass through the aperture. Theremote edge 48 of each aperture is spaced from the guide rail 30 adistance just greater than the diameter of the coin which is to passthrough the aperture but less than the. diameter of the next largercoin.

A coin thatwill pass. through the aperture 39, in this case a fifty centpiece, will slide over thek other apertures` until it reachesA aperture39. The coin then begins to fall downwardly about its edge which issupported on the web 51. The coin, however, does not drop directly downinto its receptacle 46, .but follows a slight trajectory. Because ofthis trajectory the trailing end 50 is spaced from the leading end 49 adistance suilicient to permit the leading edge of the coin to dropkbelow the surface 34 without` striking the trailinglend 50, The leadingend 49 is provided. with a downwardly sloping lip-52 which guides thecoin. smoothly into its trajectory and prevents the coin tipping sharplyand obstructing the owv of the following coins.k Each of the otherapertures tol 3@ is similarly adapted to allow passage therethrough ofthe coins of the respective diametral. sizes and denominations.l Itshould be noted, however, that the apertures do not need to have theexact Yconfiguration shown in the preferred embodiment described above,they may assume other similar shapes so long astheyv fulllthe generalrequirements noted; For example, the aperturescould be rectangular and.need notA have the lip 52 on the leading end 49 thereof.

FIGURE 4` illustrates a second embodiment of the invention whichissimilar to the iirst embodiment but` is adapted for handling greaternumbers of coins. In,`

this embodiment, a double slide 53 is provided having surfaces 54 and 55inclined to the horizontal in the same longitudinal manner but inclinedin opposite directions to each other in the transverse direction andjoined together at their uppermost longitudinal edges. The surfaces 54and 5S have guide flanges 56 and 57 disposed along their lowermostlongitudinal edges, respectively, and have corresponding rows ofapertures adjacent to these flanges as described with reference to therst embodiment. A common receptacle is located below each of thecorresponding pairs of apertures to receive the coins passedtherethrough.Y A hopper 58 is arranged similarly to the hopper of theembodiment of FIGURE 1 except that it is provided` with a centralpartition 59 to divide the flow of coins from the flat surface 60 ontothe two surfaces 54 Land 55 of the double slidey 53. In this particularembodiment only four different sized apertures are provided in eachsurface "j 54 and 5S with the largest coins to be sorted sliding downthe length of these surfaces and dropping over the ends thereof into areceptacle suitably positioned thereunder. A double deilector 61 islocated betweenthe upper ends of the anges 56 and 57 to deflect the'coins on each part of the slide 53 in a manner similar to that of thedellector 33 in the first embodiment.

The apparatus according to this invention has been described throughoutas a coin sorting apparatus. Itl is not to be limited to such however,as it would lind g use in any application requiring the sorting ofdisk-like objects similar-to coins according to their diametral sizes.

What I claim as my invention is: l Apparatus for the high speed sortingof coins according to diametral size comprising a hopper having a flatportion ontowhich coins to be'sorted may be dumped,

a downwardly inclined tapered portion onto which coins may be pushed byhand from said at portion, a wall facing said downwardly inclinedtapered portion and terminating above the latter to dene al coin passagetherebetween, side walls extending upwardly from said downwardlyinclined tapered portion to confine the coinsv thereon, a concave platearranged infront of said coin passage but spaced therefrom such thatcoins passing through said passage will strike said plate to eliminateriding of one coin or another and will have their direction of movementreversed, a at plate alongl which,` said coins travel from said concaveplate, said llat plate being downwardly inclined longitudinally andtransversely and having a succession of variously-sized apertures andVguide means along the lower longitudinal edge of so that said coin inpassing through the aperture willV not strike said trailing end':

References Citedv in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS1,346,457 Leia July 13, 1920 2,487,163 Miconi Nov. 8, 1949' 2,764,990'Pick Oct. 2, 1956 FOREIGN Parrainsy 9,639 GreatBritain Apr. 17, 1912.65,896l ,Norway Aug. 9, 1943y

